Local Authorities and Commissioners inquiry

It is important that mechanisms are in place to support and encourage local authorities to share learning and best practice with each other. The Local Government Association and Department for Communities and Local Government each have roles to play in this, but local authorities must also take responsibility themselves for seeking out and sharing best practice.

We believe that local authorities must be able to apply particular measures in relation to taxi licensing in their areas, such as requiring taxis to have CCTV installed, without those measures being undermined by taxis coming in from other areas. We recommend that, in order to ensure that lessons are learned from experiences in Rotherham, the Department for Communities and Local Government works with the Home Office and the Department for Transport on the preparation of statutory guidance under the Policing and Crime Bill in relation to taxi licensing. That guidance should be brought forward without delay. Once the guidance has been introduced, the Government should monitor the extent to which it ensures consistently high standards in taxi licensing across the country, and also enables local authorities to put in place and enforce specific measures which are appropriate for their local circumstances. If guidance is not able to achieve this, the Government should consider legislation.

We understand Tower Hamlets’ initial focus on its own improvement, rather than identifying broader learning points, but we believe that Tower Hamlets council and Commissioners should work with the Local Government Association to identify learning from the council’s culture change work which may be applicable to other authorities, and to identify ways to share this learning.

The objective should be to build public confidence and trust in the two authorities so that whistleblowers feel comfortable and able to raise their concerns directly with the councils themselves. However, when an authority has failed to such an extent as to require the imposition of Commissioners, there may be both a greater need for whistleblowers to be encouraged to come forward, and a lower level of confidence about the response they will receive. We strongly support the inclusion of Department for Communities and Local Government-appointed Commissioners on the list of Prescribed Persons in the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Persons) Order 2014 and call on the Minister to take the necessary legislative action as a matter of urgency.

If the interventions in Tower Hamlets and Rotherham are to be successful in the long term, careful thought must be given to how functions are returned and how performance is monitored on an ongoing basis. We commend the Rotherham approach, under which Commissioners retain a monitoring and advisory role for the functions which have been restored to the council. Commissioners’ expertise, their local knowledge and their experience mean they are well placed to monitor the council’s performance in respect of its returned functions. However, even this level of intervention must eventually come to an end. In the longer term, once Commissioners have been fully withdrawn, suitable assurance mechanisms must be in place to ensure that there is no regression or lapse. We recognise that there are costs associated with monitoring, but nevertheless, we believe that the Department for Communities and Local Government should consider arrangements for ongoing additional oversight measures for councils which are exiting from interventions. Such measures might include, for example, phased withdrawal of Commissioners, seeking assurance from the council’s external auditors, or peer review or monitoring by other local authorities.

We believe that councillors, and officers, of local authorities have a responsibility to draw attention to, and pursue, issues which cause them concern, or which do not appear to be as they should. This goes hand in hand with the need for councils to take seriously the concerns which are raised with them, to treat whistleblowers properly, and to take action to investigate and address poor practice.

We understand the Minister’s reticence to name particular local authorities which may be receiving support or sector-led improvement, and would not ask him to do so. We also understand that any estimate of the number would represent a snapshot in time. However we are disappointed that he was unwilling to give even an estimate which could have helped us to gauge the extent or scale of any potential problem. We recommend that in his response to this report the Minister provides a broad indication of the number of local authorities which were, as at 29 February and 31 August 2016: a) receiving enhanced monitoring, particular support, or sector-led improvement; b) at risk of requiring some sort of intervention if there were no improvement in performance.

We recommend that after the interventions have come to an end, the Department for Communities and Local Government reflects and reports on each intervention and the lessons which can be learned or best practice which can be shared in relation to the intervention process and service improvement. The evaluation reports should take into account this report, and the views of the Commissioners, councillors from across the political spectrum in each local authority, council officers, partner organisations and local residents.

We believe that ordinarily the Department for Communities and Local Government should consult both the relevant local authority and the Local Government Association as part of the process of identifying the required skills and appointing Commissioners.

On an ongoing basis throughout an intervention, Commissioners and the Department for Communities and Local Government, in consultation with the local authority and the Local Government Association, should review the intervention’s aims and the local authority’s needs, and assess the Commissioners’ collective skills and expertise against them. Where appropriate, this might result in the appointment of additional Commissioners, the replacement of existing Commissioners whose expertise no longer aligned with the needs of the organisation, or the withdrawal of individual Commissioners as the local authority achieves sustainable improvements in particular functions.

We recognise that local authorities are facing difficult economic circumstances and tightening budgets. Authorities which are failing to the point at which interventions are required may, in particular, face challenging financial decisions. We believe therefore that the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Commissioners and the local authorities should continue to monitor and report on the costs of intervention and any savings which are realised. Such reports should be publicly available to ensure that residents are able to see for themselves the financial impact of the interventions.

We note the steps taken by the Commissioners and councils, particularly in Rotherham, to engage with the public and make information about the interventions available to them. While the circumstances in the two authorities are different, we believe there is scope for good practice to be shared between them on issues such as communicating with residents, providing information about the interventions and the ways in which the councils work, and ensuring there are opportunities available for residents to hold the council and Commissioners to account. We welcome the holding of joint meetings between the Commissioners in the two local authorities, and suggest that this could be an appropriate forum for sharing good practice.

The nature of the Commissioner model of intervention means that it may not always be appropriate at the beginning of an intervention for elected members to fulfil the same scrutiny role in relation to the Commissioners as they usually would in relation to the council leadership. However, in the same way that Commissioners seek to model good practice in terms of ways of working and decision-making in order to embed good practice and prepare for the return of functions, they should also seek to model good practice in terms of scrutiny and accountability and should, as far as possible, mirror normal scrutiny arrangements. This may require Government interventions: the use of Commissioners in Rotherham and Tower Hamlets 29 arrangements for scrutiny of Commissioners to change and develop throughout the duration of an intervention, as the council is prepared for its return to democratic control.

For scrutiny to be effective, councillors must have adequate information, support and training to undertake their roles. We welcome the progress which has been made at Rotherham to establish and develop a culture of scrutiny, including the steps taken by Commissioners to deliver training and development for current and potential councillors. We recommend that the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Rotherham Commissioners continue to work with opposition councillors and the Local Government Association to identify training needs, and to build the skills, information and support required for the development of effective scrutiny in Rotherham.